Libertarian Quotes - Page 27

• It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Government, Libertarian Party, Important

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

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• The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.

  H. L. Mencken

  Education, Learning, Liberty

  The American Mercury Magazine, April 24, 1924.

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• Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.

  Thomas Jefferson

  4th Of July, Government, Political

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.82

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  Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.

  Milton Friedman

  Party, Pie, Liberty

  Milton Friedman, Rose Friedman (1990). “Free to Choose: A Personal Statement”, p.31, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Force always attracts men of low morality.

  Albert Einstein

  Love, Life, Leadership

  Albert Einstein (2011). “The World As I See It”, p.14, Open Road Media

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• In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Death, Money, Business

  Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy, 13 Nov. 1789

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• The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.

  David Friedman

  Funny, Peace, Children

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• The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.

  Milton Friedman

  Philosophy, Organization, Greed

  Milton Friedman (1968). “Bright Promises, Dismal Performance: An Economist's Protest”, San Diego : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich

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• Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Inspirational, Change, Sweet

  John Kenneth Galbraith (2001). “The Essential Galbraith”, p.241, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

  Ulysses S. Grant

  Success, Law, Political

  First Inaugural Address, 4 Mar. 1869

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• The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.

  Henry Hazlitt

  Art, Liberty, Groups

  Henry Hazlitt (2010). “Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics”, p.13, Crown Business

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• Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.

  Heinrich Heine

  Reading, Book, Evil

  Almansor: A Tragedy l. 245 (1823)

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• I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

  J. Edgar Hoover

  Witty, Sex, Regret

  Quoted in the NewYork Times, 6 Oct 1980.

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• If there's anything a public servant hates to do it's something for the public.

  Kin Hubbard

  Hate, Politics, Public Speaking

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  Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Time, Democracies Have

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.235, Cambridge University Press

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• We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Change, Happiness

  Declaration of Independence (1776).

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• When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Trust, Truth, Men

  Remark to Baron von Humboldt, 1807, in Rayner 'Life of Jefferson' (1834) p. 356

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• I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life And Love, Government, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.19, Cambridge University Press

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• And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

  Erica Jong

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "Fear of Flying". Book by Erica Jong, 1973.

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• I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House - with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

  John F. Kennedy

  Knowledge, Science, Thinking

  Remarks at dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners of the Western Hemisphere, Washington, D.C., 29 Apr. 1962

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• Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.

  Irving Kristol

  Witty, Freedom, Humorous

  "Two Cheers for Capitalism". Book by Irving Kristol, May 11, 1978.

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• Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Motivational, Work, Safety

  Abraham Lincoln, Mario Matthew Cuomo, G. S. Boritt (2004). “Lincoln on Democracy”, p.315, Fordham Univ Press

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• Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Ambition, Men, Politics

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• If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

  Thurgood Marshall

  Business, Book, Mean

  Stanley v. Georgia (1969)

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• Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.

  Guy de Maupassant

  War, Patriotic, Eggs

  Guy de Maupassant (1926*). “The Novels and Tales of Guy de Maupassant”

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